


Snag

by Needle_Bones



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Needle_Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short piece featuring Miles and a coat-grabbing inmate. (I was just waiting for someone to do this in-game and I'm honestly  a little surprised that it never happened.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snag

 

_Don’t freeze._

That was the one clear thought in his head as he watched the old door splinter and bow in under the force of each strike.

_Don’t freeze!_

Miles spun on his heel and started down the hall at a dead run. They were all starting to look the same, those halls - long, dark, littered with broken crates and rusted bed frames. Each of them seemed to stretch on for much longer than the square footage of the asylum allowed. Of course, nothing about this place seemed to make any sense anyway.

Left and up the stairs. Stairs slowed them down.

He got close. He ran past three of the four cells in the right-hand wall - the ones with bars, not solid doors. But then things were wrong. Someone grabbed him around the shoulders – no… no, that wasn’t right. Someone had him by the coat.

“Caught one,” said the scrawny, burned man reaching through the bars. “Caught one, caught one, caught one…” It was almost sing-song the way he said it, reaching hand over hand to pull him closer, off-balance, off his feet until he fell against the rusted bars.

Miles ducked away from his hands, throwing his arms up to protect his face. It was a coin toss as to whether this was one of the inmates who was so keen on killing him or not.

“Caught a kitty,” he said, petting his hair. Miles tensed up and waited but he just repeated, soft and happy, “Caught a kitty…”

_Okay… he thinks you’re a cat. That’s… good?_

The door cracked and Miles yelped, trying to crawl backward, farther down the hall. His left wrist burned when he put too much pressure on it. Damn it, he might have sprained it. That could make getting away a lot of fun.

The man had a firm hold on the collar of his coat but it didn’t feel like he had anywhere near the same grip on his shirt. If he did this right, he wouldn’t get tangled up.

The door splinted in on its rusted hinges and Miles – on some strange impulse – hissed rather than trying to talk to the man. God, this place must be getting to him worse than he thought. He managed to get his legs behind him and twist away from the bars. It didn’t do him much good but throwing himself backward seemed to help.

He was beyond grateful that the coat was loose-fitting enough to slide like it did. Ducking out of it was awkward, especially the sleeves, but it worked.

Miles sprawled backward on the tile just as he heard the door break, snapping off of its hinges at the far end of the hall.

“Kitty left her collar,” said the burned man, bringing the coat up to the bars and running it between his hands with this confused look on what was left of his face. Miles paused for just a second before he got to his feet. He almost felt a little bad just leaving the guy since he seemed so disoriented. At least he wasn’t one of the violent ones.

_Get attached later - just move. Move, move, move, move…_

Then Miles was up and running full-tilt around the corner and up the stairs, two at a time. There was a cold draft against his aching hands when he grabbed for the rusted metal railing. Or maybe it was just his body thinking ahead enough to pull blood away from his limbs just in case he lost one.

He staggered and sat down hard against the back of a closed door several rooms down from the staircase. He couldn’t keep running like this. His lungs were burning, his legs trembled, his vision was blurry… If that big fucker started breaking the door down, Miles would just have to hide and hope he was as dumb as he was massive.

But what now? It was getting late – at least, as far as he could tell – and going back the way he came was out of the question for now. Maybe he should just crawl into a vent for the night and regroup. Yeah. That worked. Miles had started sleeping in those vents not too long ago. It might not have helped him much at all but he sure as hell felt safer in a vent than wandering around the halls.

_I’ve been in here way too long_ , he thought when he was lying flat on the cold metal. He was fairly sure he had a wicked bruise across his back by now. See, Miles had this awful habit of landing on his spine whenever some psycho got it in their head to toss him through a window like a ragdoll.

Oh well. He was slowly learning to sleep when and where he could in this place so he curled up on his side and just hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t wake up strapped to an operating table. He hadn’t been exaggerating before – dying came in pretty damn low on the list of terrible things that could happen to him here.


End file.
